Dinosaurs
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Bite Marks Tell of Tussling Ichthyosaurs
The prehistoric world was intensely violent. So I believed when I was a kid, anyway. Almost every book I read or movie I saw about now-fossilized creatures showed them as ferocious monsters that were constantly biting and clawing at each other. I spent hours with plastic toys and mud puddles reenac...
March 18, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Always Brontosaurus to Me
During the latter half of the 1980s, when I was just becoming acquainted with dinosaurs, "Brontosaurus" was just on its way out. A few of my books depicted the lumbering dinosaur, and a few museums still had the wrong heads on their skeletons, but the images of slow, stupid Brontosaurus were slowl...
March 17, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link
It's easy to take computer-generated dinosaurs for granted. They are everywhere from commercials and documentaries to Hollywood films. But a century ago, filmmakers had to bring dinosaurs to life the old fashioned way. Frame by frame and centimeter by centi...
March 16, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: A Flying Ankylosaur
Have you ever seen an Ankylosaurus fly? Stout and covered in heavy armor, ankylosaurs were arguably the least aerodynamic of all dinosaurs, but two months ago the Houston Museum of Natural Science treated onlookers to such a sight as they lifted their ankylosaur sculpture out of its old exhibit.The...
March 14, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Restoring Nedoceratops: Gored by a Horned Rival?
What is Nedoceratops? That depends on who you ask. The single known skull could represent a transitional growth stage between Triceratops and Torosaurus head shapes in a single species of dinosaur, or it might be a unique species of horned dinosaur that lived alongside its better-known relatives.T...
March 11, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Tapeworms, Trematodes and Other Dinosaur Pests
In one short section of his book Parasite Rex, science writer Carl Zimmer asked a simple question: "Did tapeworms live in dinosaurs?" There is no reason to think they didn't. Both the living descendants of dinosaurs (birds) and their crocodylian cousins harbor tapeworms, Zimmer pointed out, and so ...
March 10, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Tyrannosaurus Scat
Tyrannosaurus ate flesh. That much is obvious. The reinforced skull and huge, serrated teeth of the tyrant dinosaur and its kin were not adaptations for cropping grass or cracking coconuts. Both predators and scavengers, the tyrannosaurs must have consumed massive amounts of meat to fuel their lar...
March 09, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Tyrannosaurus: Hyena of the Cretaceous
Of all the organisms scientists have found in the fossil record, Tyrannosaurus rex is the most prominent ambassador for paleontology. No dinosaur hall is complete without at least some fragment of the tyrant dinosaur, and almost anything about the dinosaur is sure to get press coverage. We simply...
March 07, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Blog Carnival #29: PhyloPic Launches, Dino Robots, Prosauropods and Riley the First Grade Paleontologist
Paleo-Profiles: A new site called PhyloPic is a free online archive of silhouhettes featuring organisms both living and extinct. Art Evolved presents this primer on how you can create and contribute silhouettes. Welcome to the Neighborhood: The Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm in Saint Geor...
March 04, 2011 |
By Mark Strauss
Looking Back at A&E's "Dinosaur!"
In 1991, the cable channel A&E ran a four-part prehistoric extravaganza hosted by Walter Cronkite and simply called Dinosaur! I was only eight when it aired, and I remember begging my parents to stay up to watch the episodes. Irrepressible little dinosaur...
March 02, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Debunking the "Dinosaurs" of Kachina Bridge
About 65.5 million years ago, the last of the non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out in the fallout from one of the earth's most catastrophic extinction events. They left only bones and traces in the rock behind. Yet there are people who claim that humans actually lived alongside dinosaurs. Young eart...
March 01, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Brontomerus Continues to Thunder Around the Web
Last week, paleontologists Michael Taylor, Mathew Wedel and Richard Cifelli announced an instant dinosaur sensation: Brontomerus mcintoshi, the "thunder-thighed" dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Utah. All around the web, the sauropod was seen punting a...
February 28, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Flowers, Pine Cones and Dinosaurs
When we think about the Mesozoic world, dinosaurs often dominate our attention. They are the stars of countless museum displays and restorations, and everything else about their world just seems like window dressing. When visitors to Yale's Peabody Museum look at Rudolph Zallinger's beautiful (if o...
February 25, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Hadrosaurus Was Real, After All
Described in 1858, the partial skeleton of Hadrosaurus foulkii was one of the most important dinosaur discoveries ever made. At that time, the few known dinosaurs were represented by a collection of scraps—paltry fragments that allowed paleontologists to reconstruct them first as giant lizards, an...
February 24, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Paleontologists Announce "Thunder Thighs"
"Brontosaurus" was a great dinosaur name. The great "thunder reptile" of the Jurassic, there was no better moniker for the stoutly-built sauropod. Unfortunately, the name had to be tossed out in favor of Apatosaurus, but a different dinosaur just described by Michael Taylor, Mathew Wedel and Richa...
February 23, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
What Do We Really Know About Utahraptor?
When it was released in 1993, Jurassic Park turned Velociraptor into a household name. Agile and cunning, it was a type of predatory dinosaur theater audiences hadn't seen before. But paleontologists knew the movie's raptors were drawn with a bit of artistic license. For one thing, the dinosaurs h...
February 22, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Did Dinosaurs Die Out Because Males Couldn't Find a Date?
What caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction is one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Paleontologists have racked up a long list of victims---including the non-avian dinosaurs---and geologists have confirmed that a massive asteroid that struck the earth near the modern-day Yucatan peninsula ...
February 18, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Drawing a Dinosaur Death Trap
About 90 million years ago, a flock of teenage Sinornithomimus got stuck in the mud. They didn't make it out alive. At least 13 of the poor young dinosaurs perished and became preserved in this single bonebed, and a new painting by artist James Gurney offers a look into some of the last moments of ...
February 17, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
150 Years of Archaeopteryx
Over the past fifteen years, paleontologists have described more than twenty species of feathered dinosaurs. Even dinosaurs once thought to have dry, scaly skin, such as Velociraptor, have turned out to have feathers. But paleontologists have actually known of at least one feathered dinosaur since ...
February 16, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Walking With Raptors
A little more than a year ago, paleontologists working in Niger announced the discovery of Spinophorosaurus, a sauropod dinosaur with a wicked tail club. Its bones were not the only traces of dinosaurs to be found in the desert area. About three hundred feet from the exceptionally well preserved s...
February 15, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
